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Mammillaria uncinata
Tequisquiapan, Queretaro, Mexico.
A nice potted plant with small hooked spines.
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Family:
Cactaceae (Cactus
Family)
Scientific Name:
Mammillaria
uncinata
First description by Zuccarini ex Pfeiffer, Enum. Cact.
34 (1837)
Common name:
Fishhooks cactus.
Origin: Widely distributed in Mexico ( Hidalgo, San Luis Potosi,
Mexico, Morelos, Puebla, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Durango, Queretaro,
Guanajuato, Zacatecas, Aguascalients, Michoacan and Jalisco)
Habitat: Grows at 1.500 - 2.800 m in altitude.
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Description: Solitary or
slowly offsetting cactus.
Stems: Dark blue-green, 6 - 10 cm high, 8 - 10 cm in diameter.
In
the wild it grows very flat, but under cultivation it
grows as globular as
any other.
Radial spines: 3 - 6, upper ones shorter and stronger, straight
or slightly curved, pinkish to greyish white, 5 - 6 mm in length.
Central spines: 1,
hooked, pinkish grey to dark purplish brown, with dark tips,
up to 10 mm
long.
Flower: Funnel-form, yellowish or creamy white, with brownish mid-veins, 15 - 20 mm long,
up to 15 mm in diameter, in spring and summer.
Fruit: Cylindrical to club shaped, purplish red to red, 15-18 mm long
in summer.
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Generous bloomer, with lots
of yellowish white flowers in spring.
Cultivation: It is a
rapidly growing species . Water regularly in summer, but do not
over-water (rot prone). Use pot with good drainage and a very porous
potting media. Keep dry in winter. Feed with a high potassium
fertilizer in summer. It is quite frost resistant if kept dry, hardy as
low as -5° C (some reports give it hardy to -12°C). Outside full sun or
afternoon shade, inside it needs bright light, and some direct sun.
Easily clustering and easily flowered. Most plants will offset readily,
and clumps can be produced in a very few years.
Propagation: Direct sow after last frost.
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